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Bridgend Soroptimists in Lockdown
What Are Bridgend Soroptimists Doing During Lockdown?

What Are Bridgend Soroptimists Doing During Lockdown?

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What a strange world we’re living in at the moment! Many of us around the world are living under Covid-19 restrictions and, as a result, several people have been asking us ‘What Are Bridgend Soroptimists Doing During Lockdown?’ As I write this blog post, at the end of May 2020, I’m currently in my 10th week of lockdown, thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world. In that time, I have only left the house to go out for a walk each day and food shopping once a week. Fortunately, we are some of the lucky ones. Although my husband and I are ‘over 60’, we are not as ‘at risk’ as many other people, and we also live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, Porthcawl. It is only a few minutes’ walk from our house to the sand dunes, Newton Burrows and onto

How Are Soroptimists Supporting Local Women’s Refuges?

How Are Soroptimists Supporting Local Women’s Refuges?

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The Coronavirus crisis has meant massive changes to everyone in the world, but naturally those changes have hit women and girls especially hard. The pandemic has also led to a horrifying increase in violence against women. A recent Women’s Hour programme did a feature on how victims of domestic violence – the largest proportion of whom are female – are now more at risk than ever. This is thanks to a perfect storm of being stuck at home on lockdown with their perpetrator, a loss of the usual support services, and added pressures such as lost household income and home-schooling. In short, women who were in a difficult situation before the Covid-19 crisis struck are now experiencing a whole new level of abuse, often with little way out. At this time, the local women’s refuge is often the only port of call, and then it is

How Can Bridgend Soroptimists Say Thank-you To NHS Staff?

How Can Bridgend Soroptimists Say Thank-you To NHS Staff?

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The Coronavirus pandemic has meant massive changes for all of us. We have all been restricted by the lockdown and unable to do the things we usually do. For vibrant and active women like the Bridgend Soroptimists this has been very frustrating. So when the call went out from local hospital staff to make cloth bags tied with a drawstring for nurses to use to take home and launder their used uniforms after a hospital shift, our members rallied. Soroptimist Creativity At Work Having found out that old pillowcases, duvet covers and bedsheets provide the perfect materials for the bags, an appeal amongst members resulted in a mass of fabric. A team of four Soroptimists with nimble fingers – Carys, Anne H., Margaret A. and Venetia – set to work and quickly produced 55 scrubs bags. Margaret gave her bags an additional flourish. She used

We’ve Got A Brand New Website

We’ve Got A Brand New Website

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It’s been a long time in the making, but the new SIGBI website has finally been launched! What do you think? Although the previous website had served SIGBI well for over 10 years, it was rather dated and it decided that a new website was in order. A Website Working Party was set up and the new website project was commenced in Spring 2019. Alongside our members, the project was ably handled by our web design partners, Thule Media. Carl and Sean from Thule Media, a specialist Digital SEO company based in Chorley, Lancashire, took charge of the design, build and optimisation of the website, and were on hand throughout to ensure the job went smoothly. All in all, although it’s taken almost a full year from inception to launch, this new website project turned out to be a fairly smooth and painless process, no

A Magical Evening of Glamour and Glitz to Kick-off the Year

A Magical Evening of Glamour and Glitz to Kick-off the Year

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Bridgend Soroptimists and their guests enjoyed (another) evening of fun, friendship and, of course, food at a dinner to welcome in the New Year and the new decade! The Club’s New Year Dinner was hosted at the Coed y Mwstwr Hotel and was very well attended. The food was excellent and conversation flowed. The evening was rounded off with a wonderful magician who entertained us with mind-reading, close-up magic and some traditional tricks.

Personal Reflections and Christmas Wishes from our President

Personal Reflections and Christmas Wishes from our President

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My Personal Reflections and Christmas Wishes  I’d like to take a moment to share my thoughts with you. All the things we say and the great things that we do. Soroptimists are caring, so thoughtful and so true. Offering our skills, whilst imparting lots of knowledge too. We give so freely of our time to many deserving cases Whilst our International Women’s Day walks Really puts us through our paces. Fundraiser fashion shows and summer lunches, lots of fun Dinner at The Bear Hotel after a trip to the Physic Garden We help out Barnardo’s at Parc Prison Giving Service where we can Proud winners of the Welsh Volunteers of the Year Award For a listening ear and genuine helping hand. We donate to Ty Hafan. Which is a very worthy cause We support Empowering Girls in Nepal We don’t need any applause. Educate Empower
Greetings from Friends in Finland

Greetings from Friends in Finland

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One of Bridgend Soroptimist’s Friendship Links is Soroptimist International Uusikaupunki in Finland. As well as contact throughout the year regarding projects and general Soroptimist news, at Christmas we exchange festive greetings. Here’s what Paula said.“Our club’s tradition is to have dinner together and usually we have some young people singing or playing for us. “This year we had a group of school boys performing an old (from the 16th century) play telling about the Three Wise Men and King Herod and the King of Mauritania and also how King Herod ordered all baby boys under two years old to be killed in order to have also the Baby Jesus to be killed among them. This play is called Tiernapojat which means Star Boys. This tradition has awakened a lot of discussion lately due to the predicted racism in it – the face of King of
Celebrating International Night

Celebrating International Night

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Bridgend Soroptimists got the festive season off to a great start by celebrating International Night yesterday. A Carol Service was held in St David’s in Laleston followed by a lovely buffet at the Mackworth. President Sharon said, “That’s what I love to see – Soroptimist’s enjoying festive fun and friendship. And we raised money for the International President’s Appeal “The Road to Equality”. Thank you to Anne Hughes and her team for organising a great evening. Happy Christmas”

Fabulous picnic!

Fabulous picnic!

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Bridgend Soroptimist members enjoyed a picnic to remember on Saturday. The picnic, which was held at Frances’ home, was part of a UK-wide event promoted by ‘The Fields in Trust’ charity aimed at getting people out of the house to promote friendship and physical and mental well-being. At the same time members of our friendship link club, SI Moreton North Inc in Queensland Australia hosted their own picnic – a shared picnic worlds apart! SI Bridgend’s Montreal Conference bear was happy to join in too!

Club members meet new member Cecilia

Club members meet new member Cecilia

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As one of our newest members, it was a delight to hear from Dr Cecilia Hannigan-Davies as our guest speaker at the end of the business meeting in June.190612 Cecilia gave us a very interesting illustrated presentation about her early life in Drogheda and her career to the present day. President Sharon presented her with her Soroptimist badge and welcomed her once again to the Club.